Working with Actors: A Conversation with Nora Fingscheidt

In this webinar, Nora Fingscheidt offers insights into her approach to working with actors, from casting and character development to the practical collaboration on set. Drawing on her work on films such as System Crasher (Systemsprenger), The Unforgivable, and The Outrun, she discusses trust, improvisation, rehearsal processes, and the development of a shared cinematic language. At the centre of the conversation is the question of how complex characters and believable relationships emerge through the interplay of directing and acting.

Nora Fingscheidt

...spent her school years in Germany and Argentina and was involved from 2003 onwards in building the self-organised film school filmArche e.V. in Berlin. At the same time, she trained as an acting coach with Sigrid Andersson and worked as an assistant director intern on the feature film Goethe!. From 2008 to 2017, she studied Directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Her documentary Without This World received, among others, the Max Ophüls Prize and the First Steps Award in 2017. Nora Fingscheidt gained international recognition with her feature film debut Systemsprenger (System Crasher), which premiered in competition at the Berlinale in 2019 and received numerous awards. This was followed by the international productions The Unforgivable (2021) and The Outrun (2024). Nora Fingscheidt lives and works in Berlin.